Mass Effect: One Last Goodbye
by OrderlyAnarchist
Summary: One-Shot. A re-imagining of the Normandy destruction scene at the beginning of ME2.  Shepards suits is not punctured, and he has a little bit of time before he dies.  Enough time to send one last message.  Romance because I'm not sure what else to call it
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Mass Effect belongs to bioware. I do not own anything related to the series.**_  
><em>

_Another one shot I wrote. It's a re-imagining of the Normandy destruction scene where Shepard's suit doesn't get punctured, and he has a little bit of time before he dies. This is my first attempt at ever attempting to do something with real emotional depth, so make sure you tell me if it's to cliche or something._

* * *

><p>"Yeah, I guess you're right. Help me up."<p>

Shepard grabbed his pilots arm and began pulling him to cockpits escape pod. Suddenly, another explosion rocked the ship. Without thinking, he threw his pilot into the open doorway, the momentum pushing him backwards and away from the pod. The ship was coming apart around him and there was no way to get to the escape pod in time. The manual control for the cockpits escape pod was beside him. He took one last look at his helmsmen and pressed the button, launching his pilot to safety. A sudden shaking told him that the Normandy had had enough. The ensuing explosion knocked him unconscious and launched his suited form into the empty void of space.

* * *

><p>The first thing Shepard notice as he regained consciousness was the darkness. A tapestry of black broken up only by the occasional flecks of white. <em>Where am... the Normandy!<em> The memories all came rushing back at once. The attack, getting the crew to the life pods, the explosions... he remembered it all. Then the realization hit him. He hadn't made it. He had gotten Joker off the ship but had been thrown away by the explosion. _How long was I out for?_ he asked himself as he checked his hard-suits air supply. _15 minutes left. That's not good._ There was no chance of a ship getting to him in time. There had been nothing of value in the section of space they'd been patrolling, no reason for a ship to be nearby. He was going to die here in space, floating alone in the void.

Minutes passed as he took it all in. He was surprise to find that he wasn't that upset. He'd done more than most people would ever dream of doing in their lives. But as he thought more about his life, the same image kept coming back to him. The helmeted face of a young quarian standing in the Normandy's engine room, giddy with excitement at the chance to work on a ship so advanced. He realized that there was only one thing he hadn't done in his life, just one thing he regretted. And now there was only one thing he had left to do. He brought up his omni-tool and began to speak, the holographic device recording every word he said.

* * *

><p>Tali'Zorah sat alone in an escape pod, crying silently. She'd been the only one to get off the engineering deck, the only one to get out before the drive core exploded. A sharp ping, deafening in the total silence of the escape pod, alerted her to a new message. She brought up her omni-tool, and opened it up. She was about to delete it, in protest to the unfairness, the unbelievability of everything that had happened, but stopped when she saw the sender. The message she'd been so close to deleting had been sent by one Commander J. Shepard. Without a second thought she opened it up, desperate to see it's contents. Along with a few codes and data packages, there was a single voice recording. She tapped the recordings icon, and listened in silence as the familiar voice of her closest friend echoed across the pod.<p>

* * *

><p>"Tali, it's me, Shepard. There's so many thing I want to tell you, because... well... I'm not going to make it. I've only got a few minutes of air left in my suit. There's no way I'll be found in time. But these few minutes, they give me enough time to... to tell you all the things I should have told you before. It's just... well... What I'm trying to say is that I've always loved you. Ever since Garrus and I saved you from Fist's thugs, I knew there was something special about you. All those times we talked in the engine room, listening to you tell me all about your people, those were some of the best moments of my life. I was actually happy, at peace. I don't know if you felt the same way about me, but I... I just needed to tell you that. I just wish I could have told you sooner and I'm so sorry it had to end like this. Now that I'm gone, I know you're going to have to continue your pilgrimage, so I left you a few gifts. Along with this recording, I sent you that data on the geth that we found. I also sent you the codes to access my bank account. I have around 17 million credits in there. Consider it my thanks to both you and the flotilla. My thanks for letting me fly around the galaxy with the best damn quarian in the galaxy. No, not just the best quarian, the best person, because there's no one else I would've wanted more at my side. Good bye Tali."<p>

Tali sat in stunned silence. Even in his last moments he had been thinking of others. He'd sent her data that could be the key to her people taking back their home world, along with enough money to buy hundreds more ships for the fleet. Both were huge gifts. Gifts that could change the lives of her people. But it wasn't the credits, or even the data that was important to her right now. Hearing Shepard talk to her one last time, to confess his love for her, that gift to her was more important than anything she'd ever received in her life.

_All those times I thought he'd want someone else, all those times I called myself childish, and convinced myself he wouldn't want me, he really did love me._ Tali looked out her pods single small window into the empty void of space and cried. _And now I'll never get the chance to tell him I love him back._

* * *

><p><em>Thanks for Reading! Please leave a review telling me what I can do to improve my writing. Every bit of (constructive) criticism helps.<em>


	2. Chapter 2

_I've had quite a few people tell me that they'd like an epilogue to this. Something involving Freedom's progress. So I've decided that I'm going to make another series leading off of this one that will continue from this slightly re-imagined Mass Effect universe, and will detail important moments between Tali and Shepard (Freedom's Progress, Haestrom etc.) I may even go into ME3 speculation (taking back Rannoch etc.) If your interested in this, look for a new series titled "A Reason to Fight." I should be able to get the first chapter up in the next week or so._

_Thanks to everyone who's reviewed my work._


End file.
